(The following story by Christopher Dinsmore appeared on The Virginian-Pilot website on January 6.)
NORFOLK, Va. — Norfolk Southern has sent its own team of environmental specialists to the scene of a fatal train wreck in South Carolina, as well as contractors to assist with the cleanup, said Susan Terpay, a Norfolk Southern spokeswoman.
The railroad is also cooperating with local authorities and the National Transportation Safety Board, which will be investigating the accident, she said.
As of Friday morning, eight people had died and at least 240 had been sickened by a toxic cloud released when a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying chlorine gas struck a parked train in Graniteville, S.C.
Norfolk Southern has set up a claims center in a local church for those who have been injured, inconvenienced or suffered losses, Terpay said.
Frank Brown, another Norfolk Southern spokesman, called it a “grim day.”
Norfolk Southern prides itself on its safety record, which has been the best among the nation’s largest railroads for 15 years.
The accident Thursday was the railroad’s first big chemical spill since a derailment Sept. 15, 2002, near Knoxville, Tenn. Two locomotives and about 25 cars derailed in that wreck, which ruptured one tank car carrying sulfuric acid.
While no one was killed, about 20 people were injured and thousands more evacuated for three days from neighborhoods around the accident site in the affluent suburb of Farragut.
After an investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded in 2003 that the accident occurred because a train dispatcher and a signal maintainer at Norfolk Southern decided to allow the train to run through a suspect switch before it had been adequately inspected. A broken bolt lodged in the railway switch wasn’t spotted by the signal maintainer, who had been called in to inspect it and was on the scene when the accident occurred.